As if mother universe hasn’t had a dandy old time over the last few days running all of us stuck on the mortal coil through the mother of all emotional gauntlets, now we’re being asked to field the devastating news that Canadian songwriter, performer, poet, and novelist Leonard Cohen has passed away this Thursday (11-10) at the age of 82. Incredibly revered by a beloved crowd of creative types ranging all across the musical and literary world, Cohen was irreplaceably influential on so many songwriters specifically in the way he could weave verse on subjects and emotions so many of us otherwise find too esoteric to communicate.

Though Leonard Cohen is rarely identified with country (he was mostly considered a folk artist), you will be hard pressed to find a country music songwriter worth their salt who wasn’t touched by Cohen’s influence in some way, if not overtly challenged by the bar he set for all in the songwriting craft in country music and beyond. But a little known fact about Cohen is that he could have been, and maybe should have been, a country music songwriter and performer.

Cohen’s very first musical experience was in a country band called The Buckskin Boys while attending high school in Quebec. It was during this time that he switched from playing regular style acoustic guitar to a more classical, Flamenco style. In 1966 when Leonard Cohen set out to become a professional composer, his plan was to move to Nashville and become a country music songwriter. But somewhere on that path he got sidetracked, and instead fell in with the folk scene in New York. If this seemingly simple decision had gone the other way, it could have significantly changed this history of country, and folk from the incredible impact Cohen could have left on the country space.

But Cohen would make it down to Nashville eventually to record his second record, 1969’s Songs from a Room. Even though Cohen’s debut is incredibly lauded and considered by many to contain his most timeless tracks, there was also ample criticism of the record for being too produced. So Cohen’s plan was to leave New York and trust his fate to Nashville.

Initially, David Crosby was supposed to produce Songs from a Room, but when that didn’t come to fruition, Cohen decided to go with well-known Nashville producer Bob Johnston, known for working with Johnny Cash, and producing Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline. Well-known session guitarist Ron Cornelius worked on the record, as did Charlie Daniels playing fiddle, bass, and acoustic guitar.

Leonard Cohen also recorded his third record in Nashville, Songs of Love and Hate in Columbia Studio A, yet by this time Cohen’s sound and slot was decidedly in the folk realm. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find plenty of country and country-influenced material throughout his catalog, including covering “Tennessee Waltz” on his 2004 record Dear Heather. So many Cohen songs were simply an interpretation and steel guitar away from being country, but that hasn’t kept many informed and open-minded country fans from enjoying them.

Of all the musical legends that have passed away in 2016, there are some that are better-known throughout the culture than Leonard Cohen. But few were as influential on their peers. And if it wasn’t for a some decisions early in his career, Cohen’s path could have been a country one.

I had a similar thought, if only because Cohen worked more exclusively in poetry and literature throughout his career and it would have been an easier sell. Dylan certainly had a greater impact globally.

True. I am not sure what the criteria are for the Nobel. If it is impact, Dylan is certainly more important, although as you say above, Cohen’s impact on other artists was large, even if he was less popular.

But I think Cohen was a better writer, in the broad sense of literature, than Dylan. Cohen wrote poems that he set to music, Dylan wrote songs. I don’t mean to denigrate song writing, but it is an integration of word and music, and doesn’t necessarily require the same precision and care with the language. (I am grasping to express what I mean here. It is a gut feeling. I am sure there are dissertations on whether Dylan is a poet.)

One of the few artists my dad and I have really bonded over; he has a bunch of LC’s early records and poetry books, while I eventually became a fan with ‘Ten New Songs’ and the 2-disc ‘Essential’ set in the early ’00s (not long after I’d seen a rerun of his 1988 appearance on ‘Austin City Limits,’ though I remembered having seen his 1993 ACL appearance several years earlier) and have bought each of his studio albums since then.

Maybe my favorite artist. Besides what Trigger said, I’d add this. Listen to “Diamonds in the Mine” from Songs of Love and Hate is basically a country song. And the hoedown “Fingerprints” from Death of a Ladies’ Man most certainly is, with its fiddle. “The Captain” from Various Positions is pretty close, and “Ballad of the Absent Mare” from Recent Songs, one of his most beautiful melodies, is a non-pastiche cowboy song with a Southwestern feel.
His death probably hits me harder than anyone else recently.
“Yes and here’s to the few
Who forgive what you do
And the fewer who don’t even care”

Here is what First Aid kit wrote about him today.
It’s both a bit naive but at the same time a beautiful
tribute to him

(The last quote is from his song “Tower Of Song”)

We are trying to find the words, Leonard Cohen, to describe the sorrow we
are feeling at the event of your passing.If you ever put a guitar in our hands and ask us to sing, we will always play “Suzanne.” When we heard it for the first time we were transfixed. How does one do that? We thought. How does one write like that? One doesn’t, we suppose, only Leonard Cohen does. Your expression is so completely original, so distinctively yours and yet so universally recognizable. We have always loved the frailty in your words. We have never been religious but in your poetry we can almost imagine something divine, something god-like. That juxtaposition is perhaps what makes it so unique. We don’t know. It is so hard to explain why something draws you in more than other things, we could use superlative after superlative but in the end all that remains is your poetry and your songs. In the midst of this deep sadness we are so intensely grateful for that. It has been a guiding light for us for these past ten years since we started making music, both a consolation and an arrow pointing at where to strive towards. It might be lonely sometimes in the tower of song, but we don’t mind. We might only be renting the smallest cupboard, if even that, but it doesn’t matter. Songs are bigger than that, they have no ego. They travel without borders at their will. We are so thankful yours came into our lives and revealed the true power of song.

“Now I bid you farewell, I don’t know when I’ll be back. They’re moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track but you’ll be hearing from me baby, long after I’m gone. I’ll be speaking to you sweetly from a window in the Tower of Song”

Very well-put. There’s not a songwriter alive who is serious about his/her art unaware of Cohen’s magic. Incidentally, early in his career, some reviewers referred to Townes as a “country music Leonard Cohen.” There are definitely parallels the way both men’s lyrics work on the listener.
Damn! 2016 has been way too hard on the world of great, older artists. Can we just say it’s 2017 already?